Rolling Country 2008 Thread

Brandi Shearer covers this old Jeannie C. Reilly song, "Oh, Singer" and it's good. "I want to know how people lived before the big corporations," she sings to a perfectly not-really-country but country backing. Close to Dark is probably as good as the retro-jazz-loungeapolitan genre has ever gotten, beating the hell outta k.d. lang or any of those Madeleine Pie-rouge kind of things. Larry Klein produced this and it's got plenty of fuzzed-out and just-arcane-enough guitar for that fusiod sheen on stuff like "Swampland," which also beats Tom Waits or, Amy LaVere. In fact in retrospect this is the kind of record Amy LaVere would make if she sang like Shearer, who is impressively floating-contralto and superbly full-bodied yet ironic, sorta like Sarah Vaughan meets k.d. lang in Norah Jones' liquor cabinet with a picture of Bobbie Gentry on the wall in there somewhere. "Congratulations" is all about a phone call Brandi makes to someone in the small town she has left, and compared to most retro-Americana-diva-country it's miles ahead. The arrangements are really varied and the songs, mostly by BS, are really about how Brandi is a "city girl now" and cannot go home. She's got a big voice that built-in martini-noir ache and she knows how to use it, which one can't blame her for, but the overall vibe is one of forebearance, thoughtfulness, sexy asceticism. The people who made this record really knew what they were doing and Brandi fits in with no sweat.

Don forwarded me this yesterday -- Interesting; guess I need to check out that Josh Turner song:

(Nashville, Tenn. - January 14th, 2008) For the fourth consecutive year, Marco Promotions' Club Connection surveyed over 200 country nightclubs and dance instructors nationwide to determine the most played and most requested club and dance titles of the past 12 months.

The fight for the number-one spot on Club Connection's 2007 Top Club and Dance Songs chart was a close battle between two songs that ran away from the rest of the pack. In the end, Josh Turner's "Firecracker" narrowly beat LeAnn Rimes' "Nothin' Better To Do," finishing the year first and second respectively. Both songs are current singles.

Three songs that were seemingly made for the club scene claim the third, fourth and fifth places on Club Connection's chart. In third place, Blake Shelton is raising glasses with "The More I Drink." Trace Adkins is giving club-goers confidence in their pick-up lines and dating techniques with "I Got My Game On," ranking fourth. Rounding out the top five is Cowboy Troy in his effort to get all the ladies on the dance floor, "Hick Chicks."

Current CMA Male Vocalist of the Year Brad Paisley landed at Club Connection's number six with his number-one hit "Ticks." In spite of doing repair jobs and selling turnips off the back of a truck for a living, relationship-challenged guys head to the club to find hope and reassurance in the seventh and eighth spots on the Club Connection chart. Toby Keith's "High Maintenance Woman" charts at number seven, and Billy Currington's number-one song "Good Directions" lands at number eight.

Country newcomers round out Club Connection's top ten for 2007. Luke Bryan's debut single "All My Friends Say" from his album "I'll Stay Me" takes the number nine position. Finishing up the top ten is Rissi Palmer's "Country Girl," which entered the club scene late in the year, but still managed a top-ten spot on the club chart.

Steve Holy's "Brand New Girlfriend," the number one club song for 2006, continued its popularity in 2007 to take the number one re-current position. Rodney Atkins's 2006 number one song "If You're Going Through Hell" earned the second highest re-current rotation for 2007.

Club Connection's Top Ten Club And Dance Hits Of 2007 are:

1. Josh Turner, "Firecracker"
2. LeAnn Rimes, "Nothin' Better To Do"
3. Blake Shelton, "The More I Drink"
4. Trace Adkins, "I Got My Game On"
5. Cowboy Troy, "Hick Chicks"
6. Brad Paisley, "Ticks"
7. Toby Keith, "High Maintenance Woman"
8. Billy Currington, "Good Directions"
9. Luke Bryan, "All My Friends Say"
10. Rissi Palmer, "Country Girl"

I really like Rissi.

Bob Frank's Red Neck, Blue Collar's backing doesn't do a lot for me, altho it features some great Memphis musicians. But he's a good storyteller and "Judas Iscariot" is a pretty cool talking blues featuring Jesus, who tells Judas to "pass that pipe, I've had too much wine," and the song turns out Jesus got crucified just because Judas I. made a bet with the Romans. So Jesus gets back to his party before it's too late, and then the song has a trick ending. Some of this is sort of Red Sovine for potheads, but I like Frank's voice. And Jim Dickinson's liner notes are typically funny: "Bob went to Vietnam and Nashville. I don't know which was worse." Real working-class music, as on the excellent "Monroe, Louisiana Pipeliner's Brawl" on which he travels around and can't take his wife with him.

Look, if you had one shot, one opportunity to seize everything you ever wanted, one moment,would you capture it or just let it slip?

It touched my heart so much. It's such a relatable song that a lot of people can relate to. I just started cryin', and she looked at me - oh! - and she had to come over and hug my neck 'cause I was cryin'. ("Because Of You" on Oprah.)

who is ashton shepherd? just heard her not-bad late-'07 kiss-off single "takin' off this pain," and noticed she has a debut album coming out in march, but mostly couldn't get over the incredible resemblance between the chorus melody of the single and the verse melody of "sweet child o' mine."

Those Taylor Swift doing Eminem clips are a trip and a half.

Shelby Lynne doing Dusty Springfield, however, is a snoozzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzze and a half. ("Anyone Who Had a Heart" was not awful, though, admittedly; doubt I'll get all the way through the rest.)

New Chris Cagle album (the real one, out next month, as distinguised from the press-only promo sampler that came out late last year or didn't come out as the case may be) starts strong (first three songs) then has trouble keeping up, but that's better than if it was the other way around, I guess.

Canadian band the Road Hammers have their first U.S. fit, finally -- sort of, since "I Don't Know When To Quit" (which I haven't heard) is at #60 on the Country singles chart in Billboard this week.

Danielle Peck (whose album from last year I finally heard) sounds way too genteel and prissy, way too much like early '90s Lorrie Morgan than a pretty young country girl should in 2008. And she doesn't have a "Something In Red," I don't think. The not-so-prissily titled "Sucks To Be You" and "Kiss You On The Mouth" (as opposed to, um, where??) are probably better (and less Lorrie Morgan like) than some of the rest, though; I need to listen more.

And I sadly have no idea who Ashton Shepherd is.

Guess I need to check out that Josh Turner song

Uh, it's nothing all that interesting--even for Josh Turner. Certainly nowhere near as good as the Leann Rimes single it beat.

Okay, so Shelby is okay, I guess, on "Look of Love" and maybe "Breakfast in Bed"; just wish she hadn't drunk all that codiene cough syrup before hitting the recording studio. ("I Only Want To Be With You," an apparent attempt to get "jazzy," has been done better by at least 300 different people, I predict.)

Speaking of snoozzzz, I also want to register the fact here that I attempted to listen to this new Philly (I think) phreak pholk album by Ex Reverie, who are as sleepy as Shelby but without the tunes that Shelby set out so ably do de-energize, even. Though I guess "Days Away" might have a certain Kate Bush over marching drums appeal, big frigging whoop.

And okay okay, Shelby's "Willie and Laura Mae Jones" sounds quite ominous -- could wind up being my favorite cut, and the fact that I don't think I've ever heard the original probably doesn't hurt. Album may even be a keeper, despite my misgivings, hmmmm.

Nah, never mind, on third thought -- Defintely not a keeper. Just way too reverent and de-energized and who-cares. Only has 10 songs (a good number), but the tempos are so sluggish it still lasts way longer than it should. An okay use of space from Phil Ramone, but nothing transcendant. She does better with the two Bacharach/David songs (especially "Anyone Who Had a Heart," not like the world especially needs another version of "Anyone Who Had a Heart") than most of the rest; "Willie and Laura Mae Jones" (apparently a Tony Joe White song), on subsequent listens, sounds like a way-too-drowsy version of what's probably been a real good song in others' hands, even if I've not heard it. The old fallacy: Make the music "intense" by draining it of life. A shame -- Shelby's a good singer. Always has been. Just not sure she's ever made a good album.

PAUL THORN - Not hating this guy; may even catch him live when he plays in New York

I did, and he's actually a surprisingly funny fella, talking between songs (about, like, his boxing match with Roberto Duran in the late '80s where Duran kicked his butt but they wound up in the same amb-yoo-lants, and how many people can say that?); too bad the humor isn't really dedectible on his album (at least the new one). Also wasn't aware that he had written "Mission Temple Fireworks Stand" (which he closed the show with a fairly rousing version of) that Sawyer Brown had a hit with; also, Tony Keith covered Thorn's "Double Wide Paradise" on Dream Walkin' 11 years ago. Anyway, an entertaining show, though I doubt I'll investigate his CDs more.

Another sort of stodgy alt-countryish singer-songwriter type guy who showed some promise in his heavy folk gun waltzes and jiggy train songs, might ultimately didn't cut it for me: Randy Thompson.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=130484228

"...BUT ultimately didn't..."

Shelby's a good singer. Always has been. Just not sure she's ever made a good album.

My friend Mark Fenster once told me that the best Shelby albums are the first ones, before she broke free of "country."

Listening on her MySpace, I had the same reaction that you did to her new Dusty stuff. I'm not sure the problem is reverence though. I don't know what the problem is, actually; I don't think the lifeless-behind-glass-feel is deliberate. But somehow her voice isn't creating enough flow of emphases and de-emphases for me to really get any kind of engagement with a voice trying to say something. Something's putting me at a distance, anyway. I don't think the distance is deliberate. Maybe she chokes a lot.

Why does Taylor Swift always wear dresses? I think she looks great in them - really fetching, and the way she moves within the dresses, with her tall thinness, gives her a sense of rippling motion. But she might well look just as great in jeans and cowgirl blouses. So what do you think she's going for by wearing dresses? How's she trying to look? What's she trying to symbolize?

And how would you characterize the dresses? Here she's glitzed up but in a way that's not upscale "elegance," but not inelegant, either.

While here she's in a summer dress, 'cause it is summer (or late spring So Cal), but I think she tends to go for a "summer dress" look in general, wherever and whenever, her movements making her dresses move as if in a breeze.

Here's a sample of a bunch of her looks.

(Actually, I just google mapped Turlock, and it's not in Southern California but due east of San Jose in the Central Valley, between Stockton and Fresno. Gets real hot there in the summer, but this is still spring, obviously a shirt-sleeve day.)

let me look at Taylor's fashion statement in a minute, Frank. in the meantime, I got a few tracks into Alan Jackson's new Good Time and I dunno...who is this guy? He wrote all 17 songs on this one himself and you get the idea he just hummed them into his digital recorder on the way to the session after listening to some Chuck Berry remakes by Chuck Berry himself, I had one of those records once where Chuck cut some stuff he cut earlier, these were new recut versions that artists sometimes do for the oldies market only Chuck probably wasn't that old when he did 'em for the money. Title track is pretty much like a syllabically jammed Berry tune and pretty rockin', actually, and I had hopes for one called "1976" but it's pretty boring, about how life was simpler then and Alan had to get out of town to be a success, just like Jimmy Carter. It's like he's there but not there--he definitely can sing and he's a real country singer, and I suppose he's a lot smarter and more energetic than he's letting on. And I mean the single, "Small Town Southern Man," is all right. So maybe this is his or his label's version of a no-sweat followup to a record that was a stretch, conceptually Like Red on a Rose, which I think really went somewhere and really gave his lack of affect a context (of nostalgia, dolefulness, something) that this music simply lacks, for all its skill.

Ross Johnson's new comp on Goner, Make It Stop! The Most Of Ross Johnson, collects Memphis singles the former Panther Burns drummer cut down there starting in the late '70s and on into today, basically. A Brother Dave Gardner for an era already over (indie Southern shit in the Clinton go-go years) in which he bemoans middle age and fights it on spoken-word-with-rockabilly-mutant-free-jazzoid-Sonny Sharrock-shred-Brit Invasion-fife-and-drum-drum-parade-drumming, and that's not the half of it. Some of the mutant jazzoid whatevers like "Wet Bar" with a big slobbering overstated 6/8 bronto-billy riff and a tale of divorce because of alcohol abuse and leading to same, and "Nudist Camp" which beats R. L. Burnside, Jon Spencer, Jad Fair or any of them in pure unfettered skronk (with accordion), are choice, and he's funny on marriage ("What about starting a second family while you're still hitched?" he asks on the last song, which is about being a drunk and 50 and with kids that you're afraid you get too drunk to father, so it's real comedy--serious shit played for laffs. "It Never Happened" lays those big parade drums under some equally crazed shit--rockabilly for real, all agitated and macho and insane--about how Elvis didn't actually die and how Elvis' eyes were like "two pissholes in the snow," while the other great cut, "Nudist Camp," details a visit by the 11-year-old Ross to two sexually precocious twins, Donna and Dora. "Twelve years old, and she was a woman. Do you take my meaning? Do you take my meaning," he asks. On "Mr. Blue (Cut Your Head on X-mas)," Ross visits a pet cemetary and runs into a guy drinking out of a broken Olde English quart bottle, mourning the death of his poodle, and they reminisce about beloved dogs and racism, stuff like that. Comedy record of the year.

So the one halfway memorable song from Danielle Peck's debut last year, only one that really ever jumps out at me, is "I Don't," the chorus of which notably goes "Jesus loves you, I don't." Beyond that, meh: I get the idea she's got a big, deep, sturdy, steadfast very Lorrie Mogan-like singing voice (not what you'd expect to look at her), but needs better songwriting, production, whatever.

New Chris Cagle album, as I said, starts out strong: rocker parsing the many shades of the adjective "gone" (his current hit); partially talked rocker about a guy Chris meets at the bar who wants to hear any kinds of songs (from Chris or anybody else) except love songs; funky country rocker with words working as rhythm (as the sort of do in "No Love Songs" too actually), sounding like it could be from Big N Rich's second album: "Guess who's back in town/Back in my old stomping ground." Most of the rest is okay -- a bunch of power ballads, "I Don't Live" and "My Heart Move On" (hey, isn't that almost a Celine Dion song title) somewhat rousing in their buildups. In "Keep Me From Loving You," Chris gets C's and D's in school and connects with a girl who gets A's and B's. Catchiest song outside of the first three is "Little Sundress, where Chris gets excited about some girl's skirt (see also: "Outfit" by Starz, which I was listening to last week) and her "golden Tropicana tan," which makes it sound like she looks like an orange juice can (doesn't sound like all that natural a tan to me), but hey, whatever suits his fancy. Also, he likes how she dances to reggae. Songs I like least are the final two -- "My Life is a Country Song" (title cut), where he does the usual pandering schtick of dropping names of Older Country Songs You Will Know, none remotely surprising, and "Change Me," sensitive male new-age mush for the laydeez, yucko. Decent album, though -- maybe better than his sampler CD.

(The one song should be "I Don't Wanna Live," actually. And "My Heart Move On" is weird syntax, but that's what it's called on my advance CD -- could be a mistake. And one thing I didn't mention is that "No Love Songs" is actually pretty funnny.) (Also "Keep Me From Loving You" is nowhere near as good as song about school grades as Soulja Boy's new single, or the end of its video anyway, where he gets all F's on his report card then tells the teacher to "throw some D's on that bitch," then ends the video with a disclaimer telling the kids in the audience he really gets all A's, so stay in school.)

Mando Saenz's Bucket is hi-definition rockin' country. "Pocket of Red" proves my long-held point that the Gin Blossoms are a huge and under-reported influence on modern country. Big almost glammy Bowie drag drums, various percussions and those big epic chord changes. Kind of like Freedy Johnston or something--who put out one recently that was all covers and was somewhat under-produced. I hear it as good commercial alt-country, Western Mythos Division. Actually, of course, cut in Nashville with R.S. Field, who also did Justin Earle's new one--which I have yet to hear, he's called Justin Townes Earle now. Anyway, Saenz is really fucking produced, like alt-program music, and tastee indeed. Not sure yet if he's just another sensitive dude mildy rocking into endless space, sounds pretty drugstore cowboy to me.
"I left New England and a sundress was talking begging me for more" he sings in "PIttsburgh," which just sounds like the fucking House of David to me (studio where he made this sappy shit). So I dunno, the songs really are pretty nondescript to my ears--schmaltz-country.

Great cut: Karen Dalton's "It Hurts Me Too" on Cotton Eyed Joe: The Loop Tapes--Live in Boulder 1962.

So the one halfway memorable song from Danielle Peck's debut last year, only one that really ever jumps out at me, is "I Don't," the chorus of which notably goes "Jesus loves you, I don't."

i like danielle's debut a lot more than xhuxk does, despite the fact that she broke my man josh beckett's heart. i really dig her voice. but what was most notable to me about "i don't" was its similarity to lyle lovett's much better "god will," which notably went "god does but i don't / and god will but i won't / and that's the difference between god and me." also notably, it came out around the same time as eric church's great "before she does," which addressed the same relationship from the other side: "i believe the bible is cold hard fact / and i believe jesus is coming back / before she does."

(actually danielle may not have actually broken josh beckett's heart. good info on sports coupling tends to be harder to come by than pop and hollywood coupling.)

"My friend Mark Fenster once told me that the best Shelby albums are the first ones, before she broke free of "country.""

I wish I could say the same thing, but, alas, after I became enamored of I AM SHELBY LYNNE, I found one of her earlier big-hair country CD's in a cutout bin. The only good thing about that disc is her voice, but if it ain't got the good songs to back it up, why fuck with it? I sold that one later on...

Taylor Swift's got a live version of "Umbrella" available on iTunes, though I way prefer her on this other version of "Umbrella," on YouTube, despite its pitch problems.

In this YouTube one Taylor makes the song sound sad and fragile and slightly desperate, as if she's the one caught in the rain, and she needs the guy to come to her as much as he needs her protection.* And Taylor sounding sad, fragile, and desperate still has some sort of... not sure what the word is, "aggression" being too aggressive and "moxie" too plucky. Anyway, some sort of energy, so she's not remotely self-pitying even in her sad songs; there's assertion and even spite in "Christmases When You Were Mine," for instance, and in "Tim McGraw" she's not just wondering plaintively whether she left a mark on the boy, but rather, to make sure she'll leave a mark, she's sending him that letter she wrote three years ago - the letter presumably contains the same combination of bitter and sweet that the song does. (And we know from "Should've Said No" that she's someone who'll dump you in a flash if she thinks you've wronged her.)

Other covers by Taylor that you can find on YouTube: Beyoncé's "Irreplaceable," John Waite's "Missing You," Avril Lavigne's "Anything But Ordinary."

*But then, Rihanna's delivery of the original also has a sadness so that the invitation "come into me" doesn't forget the rain that was used as the pretext for the invitation in the first place.

Kinda digging this Jake Owen tune, "Starting With Me." He needs a makeover to un-Billy Ray himself pronto though

I think Alan Jackson sings beautifully on "Small Town Southern Man," but the lyrics pander to the insecurity of the audience, "And he bowed his head to Jesus/And he stood for Uncle Sam/And he only loved one woman/Was always proud of what he had." The problem here isn't that he doesn't believe exactly what I believe, but that he's content to simply heave the same old signifiers for a predetermined effect. I don't believe in Carrie Underwood's "Jesus Take The Wheel," either, but that song puts out, delivers, explains itself, earns its sentiment.

Speaking of Rihanna, and Chuck Berry, among the ten or twenty things Rihanna's doing on "Lemme Get That" (my second-favorite track on Good Girl Gone Bad) is to insert these half-speaking parts that follow Chuck Berry vocal cadences, so you almost think she's about to break into "Too Much Monkey Business."

I barely remember Panther Burns (they were neorockabilly gone "crazed" and pumped-up and blood-spattered, right? rather than the cowpunk coming out at the same time by Rank And File?), but you've intrigued me with your description of the Ross Johnson alb: "spoken-word-with-rockabilly-mutant-free-jazzoid-Sonny Sharrock-shred-Brit Invasion-fife-and-drum-drum-parade-drumming."

Yeah, that description makes me interested, too!

I had a Shelby Lynne Best of the Epic Years compilation for a while a few years ago, and on balance, I did't think it was markedly better or worse than her more critic-approved later stuff -- livelier, maybe, but also somehow more generic. She had at least a tentative Western Swing thing going on, but I'm not sure how deep she went into the jazz or r&B mixing -- a perusal at AMG shows shows her covering Ellington and Charlie Rich, at least. There was one video she did, off of the Temptation album I think, that I really liked at the time; had her on a riverboat sipping mint juleps, maybe. Good song, too. I wrote about it some fanzine, running down songs on a mix tape I'd made for myself. (The zine was dedicated to mixtapes, back when those were actual mixes you made on tape.) But I'm blanking out on the song title, and youtube's not helping.

Ha, found it! "Slow Me Down" -- off Restless ('95), not Temptation ('93). My description was not exactly right above, either. But definitely has an energy that most of her later "to heck with the Nashville I make my own rules" stuff lacks:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=FbmLU6r6PX0

xpost (as many of my posts are)

A couple years ago I heard some of Karen Dalton's early '70s alb, In My Own Time; varied from harsh and haunting to almost unlistenable. I like "Katie Cruel" (first track up on the MySpace for In My Own Time). I may be misremembering, since I don't own the book, but I think Bob Dylan in Chronicles mentions being really taken by her singing back in the early '60s.

And the MySpace for Cotton Eyed Joe streams "It's Alright" from 1962. Voice is more flexible than on "Katie Cruel," and has more nuance and less shtick than, say, Amy Winehouse, but also less oomph. Sings with the same floating Billie rhythms that Amy would later use. (I think Amy's been underrated in these parts - last year's rolling country and rolling teenpop - but of course has been overrated elsewhere. If "Rehab" had defeated "Umbrella" in Idolator/P&J I'd have considered seceding from the universe.)

Fanzine was called Tapeworm, right? Or am I misremembering? In any event I wrote for it too.

And I definitely like "Slow Me Down," but even on that one there's something self-contained, perhaps (still not sure what), about Shelby's voice that makes it good but not all that immediately engaging. Track works well, but I think the background singers are what really give it warmth. Maybe she's going for authority more than warmth.

Okay, this is weird. I just noticed that, in a review of John Anderson's album 10 that I wrote for the Voice in 1988, I quote a song called "I Hope Things Aren't Like That Tomorrow" as going "I don't wanna hear how times are hard/I've gotta pull the weeds from my own backyard." Aren't those the same lyrics as in his song "Weeds," from last year? I wonder if he just changed the title...

"I had a Shelby Lynne Best of the Epic Years compilation for a while a few years ago, and on balance, I did't think it was markedly better or worse than her more critic-approved later stuff -- livelier, maybe, but also somehow more generic."

GENERIC = bingo!

As far as being more "livelier," well lively wasn't the point with I AM SHELBY LYNNE, so that don't hardly make any difference.

"She had at least a tentative Western Swing thing going on, but I'm not sure how deep she went into the jazz or r&B mixing -- a perusal at AMG shows shows her covering Ellington and Charlie Rich, at least."

It was probably always in the back of her mind, though. I seem to remember reading something in Pulse magazine, back when she was still a generic Nashville vocalist, that her tastes and influences ran deeper than whatever country radio was playing at that moment. I could sorta tell, even then, that she was gonna flip out and make a Rebellious Alt-Country Record one of these days.

same lyrics, Chuck, and "Weeds" written by JA and Lionel Delmore, long-time collaborator on many of Anderson's classics (passed away, I believe), so could be an old idea reworked. Great song, very much like the '81 "I Just Came Home to Count the Memories."

far as Shelby Lynne goes--I have yet to receive my copy. So reserving judgement, with the admitted prejuidice that says you can't beat Dusty Springfield, and the question: what did the people who made this record think they were actually doing? Because anyone can interpret anything, as Dusty did, and seems to me we've entered an age where the referent is more alive than the, blah blah blah, you get my point. Dusty in Memphis works because its singing is insanely subtle and perfectionist and because the backing is so spare and insanely subtle. Apparently, the Shelby record is pretty spare, too. I guess jazz singers do it all the time, interpret material in the same way that some mythical jazz singer from the past has done, so a sophisticated audience would hear the new versions with the old ones in mind. I dunno, I guess I need to hear it.

After an afternoon of concerted Web searching I have learned this about why Taylor Swift wears dresses.

"Dresses are my weakness, seriously."

She loves Forever 21 and BCBG. From this I surmise that she's not going for a goth look.

Also, she told CMT that she'd love to perform with Jay-Z, that if she had one record to take on a drive cross-country it would be Def Leppard's Pyromania, and that if she could tour with all women and could choose any genres, she would go on the road with Rihanna and Brandi Carlile. "You say 'random,' I say 'interesting.'"

(I'd never listened to Brandi Carlile until fifteen minutes ago, when I went to her MySpace, but this has me worried. Not awful, but sounds like KT Tunstall and Tashbed singer-songwriter respectability, without Tunstall's dexterity and wit or Tashbed's goofball tendencies. Of course, the wit and the goofiness might be there for me to find if I look, and she's not devoid of passion, but right now she's singing about staring into a starry sky.)

And I won't pretend to have an idea of how such dresses would play in teen life in Nashville and 'burbs; obviously not playing to the sk8ers and the emos, nor to the kids who are scene (if those are relevant terms there), but I'd think dresses and nothing but dresses are too idiosyncratic to necessarily code as "prep." My guess is that even if Taylor felt like an outsider or an oddball some of the time (I remember an interview where she said something of the sort, in regard to "A Place In This World"), she was in the prep sphere of influence. Not only because of the dresses but because she talks of wanting to be a good role model and not disappoint the ten-year-old girl and the girl's mom whom she saw at a recent concert of hers. (Hey, what if the girl grows up and is disappointed that Taylor hasn't turned into a Jean Harlow or a Grace Slick or a Paris Hilton?) And Taylor regrets that her career basically precludes her going to college. (She's home schooling her senior year because touring and stuff make it impossible for her to do high school. But she'll get a diploma.)

http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/5784/taylorswiftbellaasgt7.jpg
Bella as Taylor Swift

http://www.nashvillescene.com/Stories/Cover_Story/2008/01/24/The_Eighth_Annual_Country_Music_/

1979 new wave rockabilly!

Bands in the "Rockabilly/R&B/Rock'n'Roll" chapter of the 1980 new wave guide I just bought for http://ilx.wh3rd.net/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=41&threadid=46178#unread off a seemingly homeless guy set up on the sidewalk of St Marks Street

Oops, sorry about that diversion. Nashville Scene critic's poll '07 winners, for easy reference later; iin general, poppier than I would have predicted:

Albums:
1. Miranda Lambert: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (Sony/BMG Nashville)
2. Robert Plant/Alison Krauss: Raising Sand (Rounder)
3. Brad Paisley: 5th Gear (Arista Nashville)
4. Porter Wagoner: Wagonmaster (Anti-)
5. Patty Griffin: Children Running Through (ATO)
6. Lori McKenna: Unglamorous (Warner Bros.)
7. Lucinda Williams: West (Lost Highway)
8. Dwight Yoakam: Dwight Sings Buck (New West)
9. Steve Earle: Washington Square Serenade (New West)
10. Trisha Yearwood: Heaven, Heartache and the Power of Love (Big Machine)
11. Levon Helm: Dirt Farmer (Vanguard)
12. The Avett Brothers: Emotionalism (Ramseur)
13. Little Big Town: A Place To Land (Equity)
14. Joe Nichols: Real Things (Universal South)
15. Lyle Lovett: It’s Not Big, It’s Large (Lost Highway)
16. Elizabeth Cook: Balls (31 Tigers)
17. Pam Tillis: Rhinestoned (Stellar Cat)
18. Kelly Willis: Translated from Love (Rykodisc)
19. Teddy Thompson: Up Front and Down Low (Verve Forecast)
20. Mary Gauthier: Between Daylight and Dark (Lost Highway)
21. Carrie Underwood: Carnival Ride (Arista Nashville)
22. Ryan Adams: Easy Tiger (Lost Highway)
23. (tie) Merle Haggard: The Bluegrass Sessions (McCoury Music)
23. (tie) Willie Nelson/Merle Haggard/Ray Price: Last of the Breed (Lost Highway)
25. (tie) Amy LaVere: Anchors and Anvils (Archer)
25. (tie) Reba: Duets (MCA Nashville)
27. Tim McGraw: Let It Go (Curb)
28. Gretchen Wilson: One of the Boys (Sony/BMG Nashville)
29. Sarah Borges: Diamonds in the Dark (Sugar Hill)
30. Robbie Fulks: Revenge! (Yep Roc)

Singles:
1. Miranda Lambert: “Famous in a Small Town”
2. Brad Paisley: “Ticks”
3. Dierks Bentley: “Free and Easy (Down the Road I Go)”
4. Gary Allan: “Watching Airplanes”
5. Keith Urban: “Stupid Boy”
6. Sugarland: “Stay”
7. Robert Plant/Alison Krauss: “Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On)”
8. LeAnn Rimes: “Nothin’ Better To Do”
9. Trisha Yearwood: “Heaven, Heartache and the Power of Love”
10. Josh Turner: “Firecracker”
11. Brad Paisley: “Online”
12. Miranda Lambert: “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend”
13. Carrie Underwood: “Before He Cheats”
14. Taylor Swift: “Teardrops on My Guitar”
15. Miranda Lambert: “Gunpowder & Lead”

Reissues:
1. Emmylou Harris: Songbird: Rare Tracks and Forgotten Gems (Rhino)
2. Gram Parsons with the Flying Burrito Bros: Archives Vol. One: Live at the Avalon Ballroom 1969 (Amoeba)
3. The Stanley Brothers: The Definitive Collection (1947-1966) (Time-Life)
4. Merle Haggard: Legends of American Music: The Original Outlaw (Time-Life)
5. Alison Krauss: A Hundred Miles or More (Rounder)
6. Garth Brooks: The Ultimate Hits (Pearl)
7. George Strait: 22 More Hits (MCA Nashville )
8. Bobby Bare: Bobby Bare Sings Lullabys, Legends and Lies (RCA Nashville/Legacy)
9. Neil Young: Live at Massey Hall 1971 (Reprise)
10. Arthur Alexander: Lonely Just Like Me—The Final Chapter (Hacktone)

Himes's essay; I am having trouble finding the comments section...

http://www.nashvillescene.com/Stories/Cover_Story/2008/01/24/Blonde_Ambition/index.shtml

This is meaningless and self-aggrandizing, I think; Himes patting the critics on the back for having such daring tastes, for insisting on challenging themselves in a way that regular old country fans refuse to do -- which, sorry, I just don't buy (also not sure what being a virtuoso has to do with it):

Do we want reassurance from art, a confirmation that everything they already believe is true? Or do we want to have our assumptions challenged, to hear something we don’t already know? Do we want virtuosic performances that meet a platonic ideal we can stand back and admire? Or do we want idiosyncratic delivery that marks an artist as one of a kind?

It’s no news that a majority of consumers prefer reassurance and virtuosity. That’s the way it’s always been and the way it always will. But there has also always been a sizeable minority that prefers new challenges to further confirmation. And if you’re going to listen to country music every day and write about it for a living, you’re more likely to be in the second camp than the first. Thus this poll’s critics have flocked to Lambert for the same reasons they flocked to the Dixie Chicks, Rodney Crowell, Alison Krauss, Steve Earle, Patty Loveless and the Soggy Mountain Boys in the past.

His Lambert:Haggard :: Underwood:Bill Anderson dichotomy seems interesting, though (maybe because I know absolutely nothing about Bill Anderson myself.

And I don't really buy this (the Eagles and Benatar and Journey were better than he thinks -- I'll take Benatar over Raitt, actually -- and I don't think I've heard an '00s country hit that rocks as hard as "Flirtin With Disaster" or "Rock and Roll All Night" though I'd sure like to) (well, I can hear "Beth" I guess), but it's an intruiguing theory, too; country could definitely use more Cheap Trick, I'm not going to argue with that one. (Though if I think hard enough, I bet it already has some.)

Country radio’s problem is not that it sounds like ’70s rock but that it sounds like bad ’70s rock—more like Molly Hatchet than Lynyrd Skynyrd, more like Journey than Cheap Trick, more like Firefall than Fleetwood Mac, more like Kiss than Led Zeppelin, more like Pat Benatar than Bonnie Raitt, more like The Eagles than The Byrds.

And I like what he says about Brad Paisley at the end, but I still don't think Brad's as bland as Vince Gill. (He's less humorless, for one thing.)

(Well, I don't know, maybe certain hits by Montgomery Gentry or somebody "rock as hard" as "Flirtin With Disaster" -- they definitely have some hits I like more than "Flirtin Wtih Disaster," though that's probably as much to do with being more nuanced and cutting deeper emotionally. But I still wouldn't say they sound like Molly Hatchet. Who, again, were better than "bad".)

Also seems a little odd to call mostly-'80s Benatar and mostly-'60s Byrds "'70s rock" at all, but that's just me being pedantic. (And I do believe that Benatar's best album -- which I'll take over any Bonnie Raitt album I ever heard -- came out in 1979.)

I'll also take Montgomery Gentry over Journey, for whatever that's worth. (But yeah, not over Skynyrd or Led Zeppelin or Cheap Trick.) (Up against the Eagles or Kiss or Byrds, it would be a hard call. Off the top of my head, Montgomery Gentry strike me as more consistently great album artists than any of those, but it's not like I've ever made a point of hearing every Byrds album. And Montgomery Gentry have never done anything as great as the Byrds' or Eagles' or Kiss's greatest singles, I don't think.)

As for the poll rankings go, I'll probably have more thoughts later, but first I just want to say that I don't think I had any idea there was a new Lucinda Williams album in 2007...Or, even if I was aware momentarily, that anybody actually liked the thing. I'm guessing that's a total resting-on-her-laurels vote, just like P.J. Harvey placing in Pazz&Jop for an album barely anybody mentioned when it came out.

I don't know that I've ever heard Firefall, though maybe I'm hearing a lot of country artists that sound like Firefall. Haven't read the essay. Which ones does he say sound like Firefall? Like Journey? Like Benatar? I don't know. No one on the country charts sounds much like Rocket From The Tombs or the Sex Pistols or the Contortions or Richard Hell & The Voidoids or The Adverts or the Dolls, either. Must not be very good, therefore. (Not enough sound like Donna Summer.)

Which ones does he say sound like Firefall? Like Journey? Like Benatar?

He doesn't.

There are probably some acts on the country chart who sound like Poison sometimes, and Poison could sound like Pistols or Dolls sometimes, for whatever that's worth. But yeah, his logic doesn't wash.